VP Debate

I made it home last night in time for most of the vice-presidential debate. I missed the "Can I call ya Joe?" comment, but I did hear all of the meat.

Overall, I enjoyed the debate and was charmed by both candidates. Palin certainly made up for her awkward interviews with Katie Couric, and Biden was clear and concise in expressing his positions. I appreciated that neither of them were shy in defining their positions. The same-sex marriage issue was particularly interesting, as both of them spoke with honest candor.

My issue is with the coverage of the debates. Let me elaborate....

I am an American, born and raised. My parents are the same way, and their parents before them, and their parents before them. In fact, I've always said the only thing more American than me is a Native American! My family doesn't have close ties to our European roots because

1) they're so mixed that it's pointless to try and break it down into percentages (English, German, Scottish, Irish, Scots-Irish, Dutch, French, etc...), and

2) Centuries and generations have passed since the majority of my ancestors left their respective lands and came over to America, losing or blending their languages and cultures into a rural, northern/Great American culture.

I lay down my credentials as a bread and butter American to ask the following. Where did I miss the turn? Where did my fellow Americans become unrecognizable to me? Or better yet, when did I become unrecognizable to my fellow Americans?

After the debate last night, television and print media took Sarah Palin to task for how she spoke. Is this normal? Has this become accepted and I missed the memo? Sure, comedy pieces have been written about the Kennedy's New England accent, or a deep south politician's drawl, but a serious news piece about speech behavior? I pulled some lines from an AP article for an example: "You became 'ya,' change was 'comin' and a class of third-graders even got a 'shout-out' from the Alaska governor."
Is there anything inherently wrong with that? I know a lot of people who speak like that, and I sometimes speak like that myself. A news commentator on CBS last night noticed with disdain how she "began to drop her G's at the ends of words" and how she was appealing to the folksy element of the American population. Also, for effect:

"I found her folksy talk insulting and inappropriate for someone running for the vice presidency," added an Obama supporter. That is nothing more than an elitist attitude of superiority based solely on the fact that he was raised somewhere where she wasn't, which is logic built on a house of cards. Now, I know accent superiority exists in this country and others, but I honestly thought we had moved forward. If you want to report on Palin (or McCain, or Biden, or Obama), report on their policies, not the way they talk. Leave that to Tina Fey.

Term Limits

So Florida and Michigan were fully reinstated back into the Democratic Convention beginning next week and the Republicans are expected to follow suit. Their delegates will have full voting rights that were denied to them at the beginning of the year because of breaking the party rules.

I'm sure I could make a case for the ineptitude of the current system to begin with, that is, having early primaries in some states that effectively send the latter states into relative voting oblivion. Why even bother in Indiana when Iowa and New Hampshire have already made their voices heard months in advance, giving the media a chance to squash whatever chances the candidate had that was truly popular in your state (i.e. Rudy Giuliani's Florida disaster)? 

But now that Michigan and Florida are back in after being black-sheeped most of the year, what message does that send? That there are no consequences? Sure, with the inclusion of these two states, we might be talking Clinton v Romney instead of Obama v McCain, which would have been completely counter-productive to what the national parties had designed, that is, disallowing that an early primary affect the race on a national level, but who's counting?

It's all pretty bad, and I fear that if nothing changes, it will set a bad precedent for 2012. I mean 2011. 

Because that is when we will really being voting in newer, earlier primaries.

It's been a long year.

never before and maybe never again

Don't ask me how or why, but I'm way into gymnastics this Olympics. Intense stuff, both in terms of competition and physical ability. 

Don't tell anyone...

eight years ago

i was skinnier, goofier, listened to loud music and had a good time at concerts.

So now that I have more time on my hands, I can dedicate a little more of it to my blog...

Hopefully.

Anyway, I found this picture online and thought it fitting for the current state of affairs in this fair state of Florida. The presidential primary is today, although it's too early to comment on the results. Not like it matters much for the Democratic side of things, as their delegates (as of now) will not be welcomed to the convention later this year.

People have been asking me who I am voting for, and my honest answer is I don't know. As a registered Independent (remant of the punk rock education of my teenage years), I cannot participate in the closed Florida primary. To speculate on who I will vote for is impossible, because who I would vote for might not be around in November when it is actually time to cast my ballot.

Now, as a third party voter in 2004, I faced some criticism from my peers that I wasted a vote. I believe that a vote is a physical extension of your intellectual self, thus voting for a candidate I could truly not support would be disingenuous. Voting for someone based on the concept of electability is faulty logic, and thus, a wasted vote. Ross Perot caught some attention, as did Nader, and now I see Ron Paul as the representative a growing class of people dissatisfied with the one-party-with-two-names system. As I believe and see that the world is changing, not excluding my own United States of America, I am willing to look over my status as an historian to bet that there will be a viable third party in the US within my lifetime. Although our current system has been plugging away more or less in the same way since the country's birth, change, as one of the current candidates believes, is on the horizon.

My challenge? Help lay the foundation for the future by voting your conscience this year, not what your TV, radio, newspaper, pastor or party-line says.